Studies on Shih Chi

The goal and purpose of this course is to guide the student to acquire profound understanding on "Shih Chi" (Historical Records). "Shih Chi" has been classified into history category by biographists; Bang Gu also said that, with the great accomplishment in gathering thousands of books, Liu Hsiang and Yang Shung praised Si Ma Chian as gifted with excellent quality of a historian and honored ‘Shih Chi’ with the reputation of “being a factual records”. However, given the way how Si Ma Chian acknowledged his own works, we could understand that he was not content to confine his writings to a factual ‘records’. As a matter of fact, he intended “to investigate the connection between humankinds and the supreme, to reach the change of matters from the ancient to the modern, and to render an independent thinking.” Therefore, "Shih-Chi" was also a book for Si Ma Chian to express his own thought as an individual which can be categorized as a classical philosophical works.
In this course, we will be exploring three groups of questions; the first is the issues concerning Si Ma Chian and the book "Shih Chi", such as the born and dead year of Si Ma Chian, the range of the time of "Shih Chi", the uncompleted and missing portions and the amending and revising on "Shih Chi", the writing style and literary example of "Shih Chi", the comparison between "Shih Chi" and "Han Shu" and so on. The second group of questions is to review the elaboration on "Shih Chi" made by scholars from all previous dynasties, and to induce from them the point of view of Si Ma Chian toward all kinds of problems he was facing at that time. The third group of questions is the hidden messages under the surface of the written words, such as the primitive significance of ‘the-red-emperor’s-son-killed-the-white-emperor’s-son’ story, ‘the strategic function of making only a few rules as a start’, whether or not “the old person on the bridge” (Huang Shih male) was a real person? The genuineness of “the Four Cool persons in the Sang Mountain” (Shang Sang Si Ku), the intention of emperor Wen expel Jia Yi out of the capital, the real reason of emperor Jing’s sacrificing Chao Cuo’s life and so on.
Lecturing from the instructor and class discussion will be equally valued in the course.
The grading criteria: The performance and participation in the discussion and a term paper will each account for 50% of the grade.